The film's director (excellent trumpeter and old friend Laurent Filipe) included me in the footage, excerpted below. In quick succession, there's me telling my famous "Brooklyn Alphabet" joke in a cab on the Williamsburgh Bridge, orienting Luis from the Brooklyn promenade, blowing a cappella over "Body and Soul", and (off-camera) sitting in with my pal Walter "Baby Sweets" Perkins in the Skylark Lounge out by JFK airport, both sorely missed.
A mere three years later, I locked myself in a shabby apartment and sat down in front of a computer to create an online community (which a million people unexpectedly crowded into) and didn't emerge for nine years. Then picked up my horn and couldn't make a sound.
Search for Walter and for Skylark in old Slog postings for interesting tales. This black bar - the sort of joint where men wore nice hats - was perhaps the only place I ever felt fully at home. And Walter was the only drummer with whom I ever felt complete simpatico (here we are playing in Barcelona two years earlier). I'm actually not quite sure what I'm even doing here with both gone.
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